Beresheet (In the Beginning)

I once heard a profound Rabbi explain to me his story of immigrating to the US from Brazil, alone, as a teenage boy. When he arrived, without food, shelter, friendship, or even a basic understanding of the English language, he thought about calling his parents and begging to come home (conveniently for him, he did not even know how to make that call). In a moment that came to define his life, he took a look at one of his few possessions, a book by Chaim Potok, “In the Beginning.” The inscription in that book gave him perspective to persevere with the simple sentence, “All beginnings are hard.”

I can boldly, and perhaps arrogantly, state that Chaim Potok is incorrect. Our beginning (Chelsea and mine) could not have been smoother or easier. Of course, a philosophical look at exactly how we met, found each other, and began planning a life together would point out that there was a beginning to our beginning, and that was indeed hard. I suppose now the reader has an enormous number of questions, namely “Who is Chelsea? What ‘beginning’? What is this blog about?” In fairness to the reader, I will start at the beginning.

Beresheet Barah Elohim et Chelsea. In the beginning, G-d created Chelsea–and he created her just for me. I met Chelsea a little over six months ago, and so began the genesis of my new life. I had previously spent the greater part of 31 years learning, working, hobbying (oh, boy, I have had a lot of expensive hobbies), and trying to figure out who I am and who I want to be. This beginning was hard. It was fun, and it was worth it, but I faced a lot of challenges trying to find my place in the world. And suddenly, I met Chelsea, and everything seemed to fit perfectly together and make sense.

Chelsea grew up in LA, and bounced around between Northern California, then Dominica, then Michigan, and finally Voorhees, NJ. When asked how she found “sof haolam smola” (the left turn at the end of the world), she would tell you for medical residency. I think she was really looking for me.

Chelsea and I met online and quickly discovered we shared identical values, parallel “coming to America” stories, inverse relationships with judaism, and opposite tastes in music. But we found and we felt love at first sight, truly.

Some would call our relationship a “whirlwind romance,” but I find it funny to think of myself as any sort of romantic. I would say we “gelled”, or maybe electromagnetically attracted is more accurate. Chelsea is the first, and only, person who I’ve successfully put first in my life, above myself. So I knew from the minute I met her I would need to convince her to choose me for the rest of her life.

How to do it? Well, G-d had an answer for this too. In the back of my mind, I was starting to feel professional burnout and began conceiving of taking a hiatus from work to travel the world. And suddenly, Chelsea came into my life with an opportunity to take a sabbatical between a medical residency and an attending physician position. Cogs started to turn, and a plan started to form.

“Chelsea, will you put everything you’ve ever worked towards on hold, to travel the world with a stranger you barely know, to foreign countries you’ve never heard heard of, staying in backwater towns to experience the unique cultures of far-away places tourists never go?”

“Of course not,” she replied. “But, I’ll travel mostly off the beaten path as long as we go to Europe first, and as long as I’m with you.”

(Historians will debate whether the above exchange actually took place, but I am taking artistic liberties).

And so, in a great example of compromise in relationships, we agreed to plan a trip. Four months of planning later, we are mere weeks away from a 16 week, 18 country journey of discovery. In the process of experiencing people and places, I hope to discover more about the woman who changed my life, who inspires me daily, and who has given meaning to my life.

I view this trip as the prologue to the book of our shared life together, in which dedication I will inscribe, “Not all beginnings are hard.”

–Matan